Gears of War: E-Day’s creative director Matt Searcy, brand director Nicole Fawcette, and art director Aryan Hanbeck have confirmed in an interview with IGN that The Coalition did not use any generative AI for the game’s development. Rather, Searcy praised the concept art team at the studio.
“We have a kickass concept art team, and our art book is going to rock,” said Searcy on the subject.
Moving on to other topics, the team also spoke about making a brand-new prequel story set in the Gears of War universe while still preserving all of the lore of the franchise. Pointing to the scene where Tai makes his appearance in the showcase trailer, Searcy said that even the dialogue of the scene was essentially listed from the Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant novel.
“We worked really hard to keep the canon intact,” Searcy said. “Honestly, lifting the Tai moment out and putting it in this place was probably the biggest single thing we’ve done and we kept it intact, like we kept the moment intact. We just relocated where and when exactly it happened in the canon. “Even the dialogue in the cinematic is basically lifted from the book.”
This idea of picking up moments that have been discussed in other Gears of War media and putting them into their games was referred to by Fawcette as “lift and shift”. Searcy went on to discuss the overarching lore of Gears of War, noting that what we’ve seen in the games represents a tiny fraction of what would actually be going on during Emergence Day on planet Sera.
“If you think about what’s been talked about in Gears lore, it’s a tiny amount of what would exist on Sera,” Searcy explained. “It’s like a few cities, it’s a few major battles, it’s some specifics. Every time we tackle a new story, and especially with this one, we’re trying to expand not just what we’re telling the story about — the new characters here, the history of Kalona, how it was involved in the Pendulum War effort, how it might have positioned itself to be in the world that was lost, why people care about Kalona. Why is the military even bothering to try to save this [city]?”
“All of those things make all of the other stories better because it enriches how the world connects and sets us up to tell new stories. Because while we answer [some questions], we’ll open up new questions as well. Plus we’re bringing back some fan favorites, but we’re adding a whole bunch of new characters too.”
While the team has said plenty of things about the upcoming title’s campaign, little has been revealed about its competitive multiplayer modes. Fawcette recently confirmed that more information about the multiplayer is going to be revealed as we get closer to the October 6th launch of Gears of War: E-Day on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
“It’s coming! This is our gameplay reveal; we haven’t shown anything of this game, so we really wanted to set that groundwork,” she explained.
